The Dawning Light

by Robert Silverberg

As the novel opens, Kris peKym and his cronies are doing an unprecedented and revolutionary thing – they are robbing a bank. Although the Nidorians use paper money, it is always backed by reserves of precious metal, in this case cobalt. The gang removes all the cobalt from one of the regional banks, making its scrip worthless. The plan is to use their cash reserves from other banks to buy up the worthless notes at a steep discount, then let the cobalt be re-discovered, multiplying their funds overnight.

The scheme appears to succeed, but in the process Nidorian society becomes ever more fractured. Del peFenn Vyless, the radical leader of Norvis' party, is assassinated. His place is taken by Kris peKym who, as a Yorgen and direct descendant of the Lawgiver, is an ideal figurehead for the movement to restore the old ways.

Kris peKym spreads a rumor that the Earthmen are responsible for the theft of the cobalt, and when the Earthmen refuse to deny this rumor, he foments a riot that results in the sacking of the school. The cobalt is discovered there, where Kris had planted it. The Earthmen do nothing – they stand and watch the destruction, then float up into the sky, surrounded by a blue glow. As far as the Nidorians can tell, they have been driven off Nidor.

Things progressively get worse until mass starvation, food riots and breakdown of the law result in the destruction of the main Temple. Norvis confronts his grandfather, who collapses and dies as his world crumbles around him. Norvis' party appears to have won, but it is a Pyrrhic victory, with new religious sects appearing and more economic problems. Kris peKym is appointed executive officer by the remnants of the High Council, the first autocratic leader in the history of Nidor.

Norvis sets out on a quest – his mother had told him how she happened across an encampment of Earthmen in the mountains, and he wants to know if they are still there. He finds the camp, but it is abandoned. However, he has company – the Earthman he knows as Smith, who caused his downfall. Smith has been waiting for Norvis. Norvis pulls out a weapon to exact revenge, but holds off long enough for Smith to persuade Norvis to come with him to a place where all will be explained.

Rising together, just as the Earthmen did when the school was sacked, they enter a spaceship, which rises above the atmosphere. Norvis is shown what the Great Light really is, and how far away it is. He sees his planet from above, the first Nidorian to do so. Smith explains that when the Earthmen first encountered Nidor, it was the first time they had found a species they had anything in common with, albeit one that had no inkling of other worlds, because they never saw the sun or stars.

Intelligent life is rare, and previous encounters with aliens had been hostile and traumatic. Nidor promised humans something they thought they lacked – stimulating companionship and competition. However, Nidorian society was locked in stasis. It could never provide a challenge to humans, and any significant interactions would destroy it through culture shock. Instead the humans adopted the role of the beneficent Earthmen, with a distinctive appearance, for instance wearing beards, and created institutions like the School of Divine Law, which, over the years, would result in the disruption of the static society. They also created the conditions for intelligent, outward-looking Nidorians to meet and marry, thus breeding a new Nidorian who would lead the new society.

Norvis realizes that he is a result of that breeding program. Smith explains he was kicked out of the school because they knew what problems the peych hormone would cause. Indeed, the tactic proved so successful they have been kicking out other students of Norvis' calibre so they would be just as motivated as Norvis himself.

Smith returns Norvis to the surface of the planet, but not before telling him "See you in a couple of centuries". Humans and Nidorians will not meet again until Nidor lifts itself into space, as it must. When that happens, humans will not look like the hated Earthmen, and the two species will become friends.

Back on the surface, Norvis has an epiphany. He has been trying to get rid of the Earthmen for what they did to Nidor, but everything they did, even partly causing the peych glut, was minor. The person really responsible for ruining Nidor, by killing Del peFenn, by starting heretical religious sects, by creating the Merchants Party itself in opposition to the priests, is Norvis himself. The Earthmen did not need to ruin Nidor. They simply bred a Nidorian to do it for them. Now there is no going back.

Norvis returns to his own kind. He is shocked to find that Kris peKym has been assassinated while he was gone. He nominates a new leader, and prepares to do, behind the scene, what he must, starting with rebuilding the school.